LITTLE 


NUMBER-II- WILLIAM- BLAKE 
BEING- ALLHIS- WOODCUTS 
PHOTOGRAPHICALLY  • RE- 
PRODUCED - IN  • FACSIMILE 
WITH  ■ AN  • INTRODUCTION 
BY  ■ LAURENCE  • BINYON 


AT  ■ THE  • SIGN  • OF  ■ THE  • UNICORN  • VII  ■ CECIL 
COURT-ST-MARTIN’S'LANE-LONDONMDCCCCIl 


>lOO 


LITTLE- ENGRAVINGS- NUMBER- II- WILLI  AM- BLAKE 


LITTLE-ENGRAVINGS 

CLASSICAL&CONTEMPORARY 

NUMB  ER  - II  • WILLI  AM  • B LAKE 
BEING'ALL-HIS- WOODCUTS 
PHOTOGRAPHICALLY  • RE- 
PRODUCED • IN  • FACSIMILE 
WITH  • AN  • INTRODUCTION 
By  • LAURENCE  • BINYON 


AT  • THE  • SIGN  • OF  • THE  • UNICORN  • VII  • CECIL 
COURT- ST- MARTIN’S- LANE- LON  DON- MDCCCCII 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/williamblakebeinOOblak 


INTRODUCTION 

The  name  of  William  Blake  has  proved  a magnet  to  violent  opinions : 
he  has  been  more  praised  and  blamed  than  understood.  His  gift  was 
complex,  and  his  productions  combined  elements  that  are  very  rarely 
combined ; hence  confusions  are  to  be  found  underlying  his  work,  which 
have  been  reflected  in  the  minds  of  his  critics.  In  the  present  series 
we  are  only  concerned  with  him  as  an  artist. 

Blake  says  somewhere:  “The  lavish  praise  I have  received  from 
all  quarters,  for  invention  and  drawing,  has  generally  been  accompanied 
by  this:  ‘He  can  conceive,  but  he  cannot  execute.’  This  absurd  assertion 
has  done,  and  may  still  do,  me  the  greatest  mischief.”  In  spite  of  the 
artist’s  protest,  this  continues  to  be  the  current  criticism  on  Blake’s 
work.  And  yet  the  truth  lies  rather  on  the  other  side.  It  is  not  so 
much  in  his  execution  as  in  the  failure  to  mature  his  conceptions  that 
his  defect  is  to  be  found.  Those  who  disparage  the  technical  side  of  art 
find  no  countenance  from  Blake,  who  maintained  that  “ Ideas  cannot  be 
given  but  in  their  minutely  appropriate  words,  nor  can  a design  be  made 
without  its  minutely  appropriate  execution.”  Certainly  Blake  cannot 
be  accused  of  falling  short  of  his  own  conceptions  by  want  of  crafts- 
manship. 

Blake  is  at  his  best  in  his  original  engravings.  The  Inventions  to 
the  Book  of  Job  are  justly  his  most  prized  and  famous  work,  and  these 
it  is  proposed  to  reproduce  in  a later  volume  of  this  series.  But  the 
woodcuts,  which  form  the  present  number,  represent  the  artist  in  Blake 
with  less  alloy  even  than  the  Job.  They  are  the  only  woodcuts  he  ever 
produced,  and  they  were  produced  late  in  life.  Blake  was  sixty-three, 
when,  in  1820,  he  was  commissioned  by  Dr.  R.  J.  Thornton  to  design 
and  engrave  some  small  illustrations  for  a new  edition  of  the  doctor’s 
School  Virgil.  This  book  contained  the  Eclogues  in  Latin,  with 
English  imitations  in  verse  taken  from  the  works  of  Pope,  Shenstone, 
and  others.  The  English  imitation  of  the  First  Eclogue  is  by  Ambrose 
Philips ; and  it  was  this  poem  of  Philips  which  Blake  was  called  in  to 
illustrate.  He  made  twenty  sepia  drawings,  of  which  he  engraved 

seventeen.  Gilchrist  tells  us  of  the  consternation  of  the  publishers  on 

receiving  them.  “This  man,”  they  cried,  “must  do  no  more”  ; and  the 
blocks  would  all  have  been  re-cut  by  other  hands  had  not  some  timely 
words  of  praise  from  Lawrence,  James  Ward,  and  other  artists  revived 
Dr.  Thornton’s  dashed  faith  in  Blake.  It  was  too  late,  however,  to  save 
the  three  remaining  designs ; they  had  been  already  cut  by  some  other 
hand.  These  are  illustrations  to  the  comparisons  in  the  last  speech  of 

Colinet  in  Philips’  Pastoral ; birds  flying  over  a cornfield,  ships  on 

the  ocean,  and  a winding  river.  We  can  tell  from  these  what  we  should 
have  lost  if  the  same  hand  had  been  called  in  to  engrave  the  other 
seventeen  designs.  The  difference  is  enormous ; for  Blake’s  drawings 


were  not  like  the  drawings  made  by  the  great  German  draughtsmen  of 
Durer’s  time,  nor  like  our  English  draughtsmen  of  the  ’sixties,  drawings 
which  a skilled  cutter  could  reproduce  in  facsimile ; they  were  drawings 
in  which  the  tint  had  to  be  translated  into  line.  The  professional 
workman,  in  engraving  these  three  designs,  absolutely  destroyed  the 
balance  of  the  compositions  and  the  character  of  the  draughtsmanship. 
Blake  had  been  trained  from  boyhood  as  a copper  engraver,  and  was  a 
practised  and  skilful  wielder  of  the  burin ; but  he  was  entirely  new  to 
work  on  the  boxwood.  Till  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  woodcuts 
had  been  produced  with  a knife  and  a plank  of  pearwood  ; but  the  new 
method  very  quickly  ousted  the  old;  and  by  1820,  chiefly  through  the 
Bewicks  and  their  school,  wood-engraving  in  the  modern  sense  had 
begun  to  come  into  its  great  popularity.  Blake  brought  to  the  new 
material  a mastery  of  his  tool,  free  from  that  retarding  influence  of  old 
tradition  which  hampered  him  throughout  as  a copper-engraver,  so 
that  he  only  half  discovered  his  true  manner  late  in  life.  He  had, 
moreover,  the  priceless  advantage  of  being  at  once  designer  and 
engraver.  Some  of  the  early  wood-engravers,  like  the  Bewicks,  did 
original  work  ; but  very  soon  the  art  degenerated  into  the  mechanically 
skilful  reproduction  of  drawings  supplied  by  illustrators,  a tradition 
which  no  artist  thought  of  breaking,  after  Blake’s  and  Calvert’s  example, 
till  William  Morris  took  up  the  graver  _ under  the  inspiration  of 
Rossetti. 

Blake’s  conceptions  in  these  illustrations  did  not  take  their  final 
form  in  the  drawings ; they  were  only  fully  realised  on  the  block  itself. 
Hence  they  have  the  character  of  visions  called  up  as  if  by  moonlight 
out  of  the  darkened  surface  of  the  wood,  and  seem  to  have  no  existence 
apart  from  it.  Most  fortunate  when  least  concerned  to  mature  his 
conceptions,  Blake  seems  to  have  worked  in  an  unusually  happy  mood, 
striking  out  his  ideas  with  a bold  and  swift  suggestiveness,  and  that 
spontaneous  sweet  eloquence  which  is  the  charm  of  his  best  songs. 
The  vital  features  of  landscape  grandeur,  rural  peace,  even  terror,  are 
racily  sketched,  with  a sense  of  the  primeval  and  elemental  in  man  and 
nature,  seized  and  expressed  as  only  whole-hearted  directness  can  seize 
them  and  express  them. 

The  imaginative  potency  of  these  designs  is  realised  if  we  take  a 
piece  of  blank  paper,  of  the  size  of  the  blocks.  How  small  it  appears 
when  compared  with  the  print ! One  would  not  have  imagined  that 
the  design  could  be  contained  in  it. 

That  Blake  stopped  short  where  he  did,  improvising  rather  than 
elaborating,  is  the  secret  of  the  charm  of  these  woodcuts.  For  his 
temperament  unfitted  him  for  success  in  carrying  his  work  farther ; his 
want  was  not  lack  of  skill,  but  lack  of  patience.  Everywhere  in  his 
work  we  trace  the  ardent  desire  to  find  in  objects,  which  a purer  artist 
would  have  studied  primarily  for  their  beauty,  symbols  for  ideas ; and 


he  is  often  so  impetuous  in  his  search  as  to  forget  not  only  the  beauty 
but  the  natural  significance  of  the  objects  he  represents.  Once  found, 
the  symbols  are  used  as  letters  of  an  alphabet  wherewith  to  spell 
sentences  imaginatively  prophetic  of  an  unknown  beyond.  Thus  the 
same  attitudes  of  the  human  form  recur  again  and  again  in  his  work. 
When  the  execution  is  slight  and  rapid,  as  in  these  woodcuts,  we  are 
brought  immediately  face  to  face  with  the  glowing  thoughts  of  the 
artist,  and  his  ardour  and  energy  delight  us ; but  when  the  execution  is 
elaborate  we  are  conscious  of  something  lost,  or  rather  of  the  alloy 
introduced  by  Blake’s  effort  to  give  something  like  the  elaborate 
realisation  of  other  artists  to  what  he  himself  chiefly  valued  as  a sort 
of  hieroglyph. 

Beside  their  aboriginal  and  intuitive  expressiveness,  these  woodcuts 
possess  another  source  of  charm, — in  the  poetical  and  pictorial  richness 
of  their  subject  matter,  which  offered  no  temptation  to  allegory,  yet 
appealed  to  the  artist’s  faith  and  native  delight  in  Arcadian  simplicity. 
The  motives  were  simple  and  highly  congenial,  and  in  realising  them 
Blake  seems  to  have  drawn  on  the  happy  and  serene  memories  of  his 
stay  at  Felpham,  on  the  Sussex  coast,  the  only  years  of  his  life  not 
spent  in  London,  and  among  the  happiest  he  ever  spent.  Of  all  his 
productions  these  seem  the  most  satisfying ; and  in  the  history  of  wood- 
engraving they  are  numbered  among  the  precious  and  far  too  rare 
examples  of  work  in  which  the  graving  tool  has  been  the  direct 
instrument  of  an  artist’s  thought,  and  the  woodblock  the  recipient  of 
his  immediate  inspiration. 


. 


■ 


THENOT 

Is  it  not  Colinet  I lonesome  see 
Leaning  with  folded  arms  against  the  tree, 
Or  is  it  age  of  late  bedims  my  sight? 


COLINET 

Nor  lark  would  sing,  nor  linnet,  in  my  state. 
Each  creature,  Thenot,  to  his  task  is  born ; 
As  they  to  mirth  and  music,  I to  mourn. 


THENOT 

Yet  though  with  years  my  body  downward  tend, 
As  trees  beneath  their  fruit  in  autumn  bend, 
Spite  of  my  snowy  head  and  icy  veins, 

My  mind  a cheerful  temper  still  retains. 


■/ 


COLINET 

Thine  ewes  will  wander ; and  the  heedless  lambs 
In  loud  complaints  require  their  absent  dams. 

THENOT 

See  Lightfoot ; he  shall  tend  them  close ; and  I 
’Tween  whiles  across  the  plain  will  glance  mine  eye. 


COLINET 

The  riven  trunk  feels  not  the  approach  of  spring ; 
Nor  birds  among  the  leafless  branches  sing. 
Ill-fated  tree ! and  more  ill-fated  I ! 


3 


THENOT 

Sure  thou  in  hapless  hour  of  time  wast  born, 
When  blightning  mildews  spoil  the  rising  corn, 

Or  when  the  moon,  by  wizard  charm’d,  foreshows, 
Blood-stain’d  in  foul  eclipse,  impending  woes. 


THENOT 

Nor  fox,  nor  wolf,  nor  rot  among  our  sheep : 

From  these  good  shepherd’s  care  his  flock  may  keep. 


COLINET 

Unhappy  hour!  when  fresh  in  youthful  bud 
I left,  Sabrina  fair,  thy  silvery  flood. 


COLINET 

A fond  desire  strange  lands  and  swains  to  know. 


THENOT 

A rolling  stone  is  ever  bare  of  moss. 


COLINET 

The  damp,  cold  greensward  for  my  nightly  bed, 
And  some  slant  willow’s  trunk  to  rest  my  head. 


COLINET 

Untoward  lads,  the  wanton  imps  of  spite, 
Make  mock  of  all  the  ditties  I endite. 


THE NOT 

For  him  our  yearly  wakes  and  feasts  we  hold. 


5 


THENOT 

This  night  thy  care  with  me  forget,  and  fold 
Thy  flock  with  mine. 


THENOT 

New  milk,  and  clouted  cream,  mild  cheese  and  curd, 
With  some  remaining  fruit  of  last  year’s  hoard, 
Shall  be  our  evening  fare. 


* 


/ 


-/ 


THENOT 

With  songs  the  jovial  hinds  return  from  plow. 


THENOT 

And  unyok’d  heifers,  loitering  homeward,  low. 


6 


HERE  • ENDS  WILLIAM  - BLAKE  • BY-LAURENCE 
BINYON  • BEING  • NUMBER  • II  • OF  • LITTLE 
ENGRAVINGS-  EDITED-  BY-T-STURGE-  MOORE 
PRINTED- BY- MORRISON  AND- GIBB- LIMITED 
TANFIELD- EDINBURGH  • FOR-THE-UNICORN 
PRESS  • LIMITED  • LONDON  • AND  • FOR  • LONG- 
MANS  GREEN  -&  CO • NEW-YORK-  MDCCCCII 


» 


.1 , 


?■ 


' 


I k 


. $ 


# ■ ijt- 


■#  * V 


* v 


* ’■ 


■ ■ 


#-■ 


% *r 

4‘ 


4'  • '^ 


# 


h * 


M 


* ' % 


■ i- 


* jc,  % ■ 


